The Painted Child

The child waited, in white face paint, at her spot by the side of the road.

In daylight, this place would have been bustling with commerce. Locals would lay blankets on the cracking earth and arrange their wares for display. They would sell colourful trinkets and dried goods. They would roast tarantulas over open flames, the blandness of their flesh disguised by pungent aromas of garlic and chilli and burnt oil.

But at that moment, in the encroaching darkness, there was only the child.

And the discoloured stain of the sodium streetlamp.

And the men.

From where we sat, peering out into the night through the guesthouse window, the men were indistinct — formless silhouettes watching the child nervously from the interstitial space where the town gave way to the jungle beyond. But, even without seeing their faces, we both knew what those men looked like: caucasian, late 50s, substantial. Men who drive sports cars — only in the summer months, of course — and ensure that you know what the bottle cost before pouring.

We watched the men. The men watched the child.

“What do we do?”

I can’t remember who said it out loud. It might have been me, or it might have been my companion for the night. In any case, it wasn’t a question. Not really. It was a statement, a placeholder, something you say for the sake of knowing it has been said.

“What can we do?”

We both knew the answer.

One of the men took those first few cautious steps forward, towards the child.

And flying insects, led astray in their pursuit of the moon, battered themselves ceaselessly against the burning bulb of the streetlamp.

My companion and I had arrived in this place separately, each on our own journey. I had come for the congealed cow blood and the rows of stacked human skulls. I had come for the ruined temple with its stone figures being consumed by the jungle, a deicide in slow motion. 

My companion had come for the acid burn victims, the huddled women in dark rooms, disfigured faces like melted wax.

In the morning the child was gone. And the merchants returned, riding mules and motorcycles, carrying baskets of aromatic spices and dried fish, kindling cooking fires in shallow pits.

We had come to that place separately.

But we left together, walking hand in hand, fingers interlaced, the punishing sun at our backs, driving us on.